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Silver Lake board OKs new elementary school breakfast program

USD 372 also to stop practice of parents providing snacks for young students

By Angela Deines

Special to the Capital-Journal

SILVER LAKE — Members of the Silver Lake Unified School District 372 Wednesday gave district officials the approval to begin an elementary school breakfast program and eliminate the practice of parents providing snacks for elementary students.

Beginning in August, elementary students will be able to get breakfast for $1.58 or less, depending on whether they qualify for free or reduced prices.

“We’re one of the few schools in this area that doesn’t have a breakfast program,” said Ronda Pegram, Silver Lake Elementary School principal. “We did it years ago for a year and it stopped. I don’t know why.”

Tara Schooler, USD 372’s director of food service, said the breakfasts will be fully reimbursable through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She said she knows doing away with the parent-provided snacks will be unpopular with many parents and some teachers. However, she said she made the recommendations to start the breakfast program and do away with the parent-provided snacks because they haven’t been consistently nutritious and concerns about the accidental exposure to foods to which some children may be allergic.

Schooler said while participation in the breakfast program won’t be high at first, she said providing the meal is more cost-efficient for the district and nutritionally sound for students who need it.

“If we’re trying to hit the kids who need breakfast in the morning,” she told board members, “that’s the way to go.”

Pegram and Schooler said they would brief board members in September to let them know how the breakfast program and the elimination of snacks are going.

In other business Wednesday, board members unanimously elected Randy Matzke for a fourth consecutive one-year term as president.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” he said. “It’s something I’m happy to do and it’s something I’m passionate about.”

Board members also unanimously elected Tracy Higinbotham to her first term as vice president.

“I’m excited for my new role,” she said. “It’s a great district and a great group of people.”

Board members elected Jake Fisher to be the board’s governmental relations representative for the Kansas Association of School Boards and Bridget Reimer as the district’s food service hearing officer.